


Legends

by bunnyfication



Series: alphabet prompt fics [8]
Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Mythology, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 14:40:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2113734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnyfication/pseuds/bunnyfication
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Gojyo is an actual kappa and Hakkai meets him first as traveling monk, and later as a newly minted youkai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legends

**Author's Note:**

> Posted in 2010, prompt from lauand. Started by borrowing inspiration from a Swedish folk tale, got sidetracked in the middle, and ended up borrowing from the original Journey to the West too by the end.

The day was hot, pressing down on the lone traveler like a physical weight. Behind him, the road was long and dusty. Yet the heat didn't seem to affect him in the least, his back straight and his head held high, steps long and confident. His staff clinked melodiously on each step, the sound melding in with the frantic sound of the grasshoppers in the long grass at both sides of the road.

Suddenly a light wind picked up, blowing fresh air over the sweltering scenery. With it, it brought the scent of cool water. For all his apparent aloofness, the monk did speed up at that, and furthermore when he heard the sound of water, a soft lapping that seemed to speak of coolness and relief. 

He pushed aside the reeds growing at the water's edge, sheltering a river shore, the waters flowing wide and slow. It was only after he'd leaned down to drink that the monk heard the music. He froze in place, hand still cupped around cool water that leaked out slowly between his fingers. The clear notes of a harp and the low voice seemed to melt in into the sounds of the small waves. 

He looked up, and saw the water sprite. It was sitting on a stone, partially submerged in water, and playing a simple bow harp. The bow was made of some white, smooth material that looked unnervingly like bone, and the monk felt a cold shiver run down his spine at the thought of what... or whom it might be from. 

The sprite's skin was the pale colour of a fish's underbelly, and its hair fell down in black wet tendrils. When it glanced up at the monk, he saw that its eyes were likewise dark, framed by long lashes. The monk felt transfixed by them, idly wondering if it was a spell, but not particularly afraid. He straightened up slowly and backed away from the water, but it was only caution.

The monk smiled politely and bowed, but the water sprite merely looked at him. Then it smiled too, the teeth revealed sharp and gleaming. 

"I have no quarrel with you," it said, and continued playing, giving him a sideways look every now and then. 

The monk, who had been half readying himself for battle, was feeling a bit thrown, so he stood there, listening to the song. Eventually, when it became apparent the sprite was true to its word, he sat down onto the bank. It took him a while to recognize the song, oddly played and sung as it was, and then the monk laughed. 

"A _chant_? What good could it possibly do to one like you? This staff," and he held out his, "will sprout leaves before a monster can reach enlightenment..." he said unthinkingly.

The water sprite stopped playing suddenly, head still bowed over the instrument, long hair hiding its expression.  
"Does no harm neither," it said, not angrily, but the almost companionable mood of before was broken. 

The monk almost felt sorry, though it was not his habit to feel sorry for saying the truth. It was a habit that had not made him popular amongst his fellow monks, but then popularity was not something he particularly cared for. Why should he care for anyone's opinion...why, indeed, should he want for anything? It was that about Buddhism that made sense to him. Why want for things... parents, his sister... that he could never have? It only lead to suffering.

A fellow novice, the only one he might have called a friend, but instead merely thought of as a someone similar enough to get along with, had listened to him explain it once. Then he'd given him a piercing look from his violet-blue eyes. 

"No," Kouryuu had said frankly. "Telling yourself you don't crave for something isn't the same as not doing it. That's just lying to yourself."

And young Gonou had only laughed, because Kouryuu was equally rude with everyone.

He woke from his thoughts to find himself alone on the shore. The wind had picked up, and brought with it ragged grey clouds that covered up the sun. The monk shivered slightly, and stood up, dusting off his robes. He supposed he'd insulted the sprite, and would have to be careful around this river in the future. 

Oh well, no matter. He'd only come this way to visit the convent further off, to ask them about his sister. After all this time he didn't truly expect to find her, but it had become a habit, the search. Something to pass the time and see new places.

*

The next time he came to that river, the weather was stormy, rain beating the surface of the water like a sheer curtain, while the wind churned it up into peaky waves. A bolt of lighting split the inky sky, and was followed a moment later by a growl of thunder.

The monk...no, the man, if we can still call him such (he himself was uncertain) did not care about all this. His sight was dimmed enough by the dark spots dancing in front of it that he couldn't have said whether it was day or night, and the pain radiating out from the wound in his stomach eclipsed the feeling of cold rain hitting his skin.

When he stumbled to the water, he simply fell. He couldn't possibly cross it as he was. He'd only been walking out of habit in any case, rather than from any desire to get anywhere. This place was as good to die in as any. After all, he'd accomplished his goal in life, he thought bitterly. He'd found his sister, and he'd found that he did indeed crave...oh, how much he had. And now she was dead, and it was all over. 

Distantly, through his dimming vision, he watched his blood flowing down the shore and mixing with the water. He had heard, long ago in his childhood, that one should not swim in a river with a wound, because water sprites could smell blood even from miles away...

And because of that, when he opened his eyes again (when had he closed them?) and saw the dark eyes of the sprite over him, he was not surprised. He'd killed a lot of them; this last weeks...figured he'd end up food for one. So he merely smiled at it, relieved he was done with this life. If anything, it should be peaceful to be reborn as a maggot.

*

He was unpleasantly surprised to wake up, still alive and feeling better than he expected. "Better", in a relative way and in a certain manner of speaking. Gonou blinked at the roof over his head. It looked old and decrepit, made of rough-hewn blackened wood. Turning his head carefully, he could see the rest of the house matched the roof. And that not only did it look old, but abandoned as well. The messy pile of what seemed to be netting infesting one corner pointed out to it being an old fisherman's cottage. Whereas on the wall there was a...oh, a collection of human skulls strung together on a rope? How lovely.

Gonou turned back towards the roof and blinked at it. Perhaps he'd worried too soon about living? 

After some consideration, he decided that after the first shock of finding himself alive, he found he had descended into a sort of apathy about the matter. Life generally brought up enough possibilities for death, as he'd learned. With that in mind, Gonou fell back to sleep.

He woke up again to find the water sprite sitting on the floor and staring at him. Gonou stared back for a moment, and then, when the other just kept staring, said:

"Where am I?"

"It's an island," the water sprite replied with a small shrug. 

Now when Gonou was looking more carefully, he realised the sprite's hair and eyes weren't black. They were very dark brownish red instead, like old dried blood. Funny.

"I see. Did you eat the previous owner, perhaps?" Gonou asked, his eyes shifting to the decoration on the wall.

The water sprite looked shifty for a moment, and then grinned.

"Naaw, I don't eat humans. Don't like the taste," it said, scratching at the back of its neck with a nonchalant expression. 

"That so," Gonou deadpanned, and after that the discussion ground to a halt, until the water sprite got up and walked away. Gonou noticed how it moved awkwardly, as if uncomfortable inside the old cottage. 

And why would that be, Gonou wondered despite himself. He'd never heard of water sprites being especially wary of buildings. Then again he'd never heard much about them living in buildings either. 

*

Eventually he got better. First well enough to walk around the cottage, albeit slowly and leaning heavily on his broken staff, and later to explore the island too. It was very small. Near the cottage there were the rotten remains of a boat, dragged high up on land. He ascertained that if he were healthy, he might be able to swim to the other shore of the river. _If_ he were healthy. 

Then again, the water sprite hadn't actually threatened him, quite the opposite. Gonou sat down on the porch, raising his shirt to look at the long scar on his abdomen. It had been stitched whole, though the wire was already gone. While the stitches had been slightly uneven, they did seem to have done their job. He could barely feel the pull of the wound anymore...

He thought of how no human should have survived such an injury, and shied away from the thought. In his time on the nameless island, Gonou hadn't ever gone to the water. Hadn't wanted to see his reflection in it. He didn't think about why.

Instead, he looked for edible grasses and leaves and firewood. Couldn't find much, but enough to make a very simple soup of the fish and... cucumber the water sprite brought to him.

He built a fire in the fire pit at the middle of the cottage. Most of the smoke drifted out from the hole in the roof, but some of it remained inside, stinging his eyes. Still, it made the decrepit hut feel almost like... a real house. Gonou smiled bitterly, shaking his head at himself. Had he really almost thought "home"? How foolish. 

He was only stopping by here.

He realized there was someone else there, and turned to see the water sprite, hovering at the doorway. It was dark by then, and its eyes reflected the firelight, making them look redder than ever.

"Evening," Gonou said, not startled. 

"What are you doing?" The sprite asked, frowning at him.

"Step inside, I was just making soup," Gonou said. Not an answer to the real question, really, but then he didn't really know what he was doing, making himself at home in this place.

Gonou had found an old bowl too, hiding under the pile of netting which he'd thrown out earlier. It was wood, and slightly cracked at one edge, but did hold liquid otherwise. Politely, he gave it to his host first.

For a moment the water sprite just stared at the soup, as if unsure what to do with it.

"That's soup, has cucumber and fish in it." Gonou explained, and the sprite glowered at him and shoved the bowl back into his hands.

"I know what it is," it growled. "You eat it first."

Gonou shrugged and did so. It was only when he'd finished the bowl that he realized.

"There are no poisonous plants on this island, you know," he told the sprite. 

It shrugged, looking slightly sheepish and defensive. Gonou remembered watching it sitting in the doorway once, while he was still too ill to get out of bed. The sprite's skin was full of old scars, and it was thin, spine a knobby arch. It had looked very vulnerable, in that moment.

"Dunno 'bout that. Could have had it with you though." It told him.

"I suppose so," Gonou agreed.

The sprite did eventually eat some of the soup, after he was done with it. Its eyes widened after the first suspicious sip, and then it wolfed down the rest, even going so far as to lick the bowl meticulously. Such a long tongue... Gonou thought, and then remembered a story he'd heard about water sprites and their tongue. A shiver ran down his back, a strange mix of disquiet and something else. Something that had no place here, he told himself forbiddingly.

The slight movement seemed to catch the other's eye, and it glanced up at him quickly. So wary, Gonou thought. Again he wondered if all water sprites were like that, or just this one. They stared at each other for a long, drawn out moment, and then the sprite put the bowl down suddenly, so it made a muted thud and broke the spell. It didn't meet his eyes, after that, or thank him for the food, just slipped out into the night again.

However, the following day Gonou found a bundle of real herbs in a watertight bag on the doorstep. Like an offering.

*

There were other things too, fruit and vegetables and once a whole chicken. Often the sprite appeared to share the dinner he made. Sometimes it didn't, and Gonou left some food outside instead, to find it gone by morning. 

When it did, they spoke, at first haltingly and then growing more comfortable in each other's company. Gonou spoke more, about his life at the monastery, or about the things he'd learned there and since. Never of his sister. The sprite said less, but it did speak occasionally beyond short questions. 

_"It is a simple life, this. I need not work, as humans do. The lake gives me all I need for living. It is an easy life."_ it said, once, and there was a strange resigned bitterness in its voice, then.

One evening, when the sprite did once again appear, Gonou gave him his bowl (he'd made two new ones by then) and asked:

"Do you steal them? All the things you bring here."

The sprite gave him a long, sideways look.

"Do you think anyone would sell to me, even if I had money? Besides, people have so much stuff, they shouldn't miss it."

"Hm," Gonou said. Admittedly he did like having something else besides fish to eat, and the sprite was right... but still. 

Maybe the sprite noticed his disapproval, because he stopped eating and stared sullenly at the bowl.

"It's not like I eat their children..." he mumbled, and Gonou thought of the necklace of skulls on the hut wall. For some reason he hadn't thrown it out. The sprite might consider it a prized possession, and besides, it was a good... reminder. Most of the skulls were rather small.

And he'd heard stories, before.

"I heard," he said slowly, offhand, "from the villagers near here, that there is a monster living in this river. That it especially liked young children. To take them into the water and drown them. Sometimes the bodies were found later, bloated and cut open. And sometimes they never turned up."

He turned to look at the sprite, but it wasn't looking at him, instead staring out of the doorway and into the distance over the water. Then it looked at him, the inhuman eyes considering him gravely. It grinned, showing a mouthful of sharp, sharp teeth.

"Heard that, did you? I've heard some stories too... I do listen, you know. Have pretty good hearing." He tapped one sharp tipped ear.

"Heard of a man... a monk, even. Heard he killed a lot of people. And folks that weren't people too."

"They took something that was his. His sister," Gonou answered hoarsely. 

The sprite shrugged, still grinning that edged grin.

"Sister? Heard it was his lover. Oh well, all the same, huh? She must have been very tasty, to be worth all that--"

It wasn't a conscious decision. Gonou just suddenly found the world had shifted, and the sprite was now pinned under him. Its dried-blood eyes wide with surprise or terror, and its hair was spread below it, wet and shiny. It was gasping like a landed fish, probably because of Gonou's hand around its throat. His nails (his long, sharp nails) were digging into the thin skin, drawing blood. The sprite didn't struggle, didn't move. Smart. Too late.

"Thousand..." The sprite gasped, wincing as the movement caused Gonou's nails to dig in deeper. His hold loosened in bemusement, not enough to let the sprite free, but enough to allow it to speak.

"They say... if you kill a thousand of my kind, you become one of us... always thought it was just a story." 

It reached up a hand, and Gonou was too frozen to do anything as the fingers touched his ear, tracing along it. From the tip to...

"You _were_ human when we first met," the sprite said. "No magic can mask the scent, from me."

"No," Gonou whispered. He needed to silence it. There was no difference. If he could hear the roots of the trees burrowing into the thin soil of the tiny island, drawing water from the river, their leaves sprouting out... they were shivering now, shivering as their master wasn't. His river, his island, and yet, Gonou was holding him down, could kill him with a single slash of razor sharp, inhuman nails.

The water sprite was still looking at him, no longer with that awful grin, but with a strange little smile, almost wistful. 

"It's ok," he said, and it was only then that Gonou realized his face was wet. Tears? He hadn't known he had any left. He realized his hold had slackened too, but the other wasn't moving away. Still had his hand on his face though, stroking along his cheek. 

"It's fine, whatever you need..." 

And he leaned into the touch on his cheek, then, instinctively like leaves turning towards sunlight. Followed it down, to kiss a pliant, unresisting mouth. That soon enough turned hungry, starving, but that was fine. That was perfect. He was starving too, for touch, anywhere and everywhere. Drowning in the new senses he'd been ignoring all this while, pretending he couldn't hear and taste and _feel_ the world around him, and the creature under him. Clutching at him like a vine, but he had no mind to escape, only to get closer. 

Clothing was in the way, and then suddenly it wasn't. The sprite laughed, low and hoarse.  
"I'm not fixing those..." he mumbled, but then Gonou bit his neck, almost hard enough to draw blood, and the words broke into a curse. Gonou just rocked against him, slick flesh against slick flesh, and it was good, but it wasn't good enough, and he growled, frustrated.

The water sprite grinned, looking feverish and almost as hungry as he felt.

"Impatient, huh? Well, what are you waiting for?" he asked.

"Don't want... won't hurt you," Gonou managed to get out, even though words were difficult. Getting difficult to remember why not, even. But he might be damned already, and a monster besides... but not that sort of monster. No.

"Can't hurt me, not if you tried,” the water sprite whispered, leering, and it was a lie, and they both knew it. And then it said: "Oh, _fine_ , and flipped them over suddenly. Before Gonou had time to _think_ about resisting, that long tongue was on him and... damn _in_ him and... he stops trying to think about it, then and there. There is only the pleasure, like the tide or the spring, ebbing and rising, unstoppable.

He finds a handful of hair and tugs, needing. Not even thinking about what, at that point, just needing, mindlessly. And the other comes to him, licking a long stripe across him that makes him keen aloud, and then he is held again.

"Better?" He is asked, mischievously, and it annoyed Gonou that the other still could speak, when he himself was so far gone, so we wrapped his legs around his waist, a hint and a command in one. There is a spark in the dark eyes above him, and he doesn't need to wait after that. No more words after that either, not of the spoken kind, only movement and desire. It takes them and scatters them, and leaves after it only a sated darkness.

*

He woke up.

He felt new, like his skin had slouched away and left something thinner and more sensitive in its wake. All his old problems, his old sins and sorrows were still there, but right at that moment they felt distant, unimportant next to the realization that it was a new morning and he was alive. And rather sticky and sore, if he thought about it.

But he didn't, because that was when he opened his eyes, and saw. 

They were all wrapped together, arms and legs and...dark, fragile looking vines, that he knows are _his_ , tying them together. Dark eyes, already awake, were giving him a rather wry look.

He thought about his broken staff, remembered these same leaves curling around the wood on that night when the stumbled onto the shore, dying. Thought about how the sprite hadn't played his harp once in the time he had been here. He must ask him to, later.

"As nice as this is...mind letting me go sometime?" he said, voice low and amused and gentle, somehow. 

He did, but the other didn't go far, just sprawled there. 

"You ok?" he asked eventually, and he nodded in answer. There were no words yet.

"I..." The sprite hesitated, and then spoke, fast like he was trying to get it over with before he could rethink it. "My name's Gojyo." 

Names are important. Knowing them gives you power over others. He knew that, before, and knew it even better now. Didn't think he had a name to give in return, not anymore, and suddenly he wished he had. Gojyo was waiting. 

He was about to say something, perhaps give him the old name, as dead as it is, but then Gojyo straightened up suddenly, cursed under his breath, just before they both could hear the speech over the water, and the sound of oars splashing into water. 

And after that, for a long while there was no chance for discussion. But that, as it is said, was another story. Or, even, _several_ other stories.

*

**Epilogue:**

"Dammit, Hakkai."

He is pouting, in that way that is highly adorable, and Hakkai smiles secretly, without turning up from where he is scrubbing at the remaining stains on the stone surface of the altar.

"Seriously, anything that's not gone by now is fucking permanent. Just let the poor monks have their altar back."

"Gojyo! Language! This is a temple after all..."

The curses that Gojyo utters next are certainly not temple appropriate, and Hakkai has to stifle a chuckle. But he still doesn't turn, because the robes the Merciful Goddess has decreed Gojyo to wear are so terribly sheer and flattering (no matter how much Gojyo himself complains about them), and after all this work he'd hate to have to clean the altar again.

Besides, the monks were so terribly shocked at the last temple when Hakkai got a bit carried away, and got interrupted at it besides. Which had been something of an inconvenience, and wouldn't do to happen again.

He stands up, instead, rubbing his hands, pleased with the result. The stone is free of dripped candle wax, the gilded Buddha gleaming like new... perfect. 

An arm wraps around him and pulls him away from admiring his handwork. 

"At last!" Gojyo exclaims, sounding put upon. "Now, you and I are going to have a well earned break. Or two."

"Hmm, I do have to be at the next place tomorrow..." Hakkai says, unable to resist teasing him further.

"No, you don't. It's not like those altars are running away, and you have all the time in the world to clean them. Besides, _she_ told me to go see how you were doing herself, which means the voyeuristic bitch is probably spying on us, and you know what that means." Gojyo counters.

"She's expecting a good show?" 

"Exactly."

They walk in silence for a moment, in truth quote content to just be together. It could be better, but at least they get to meet often enough, which is better than they expected, at the moment of judgment when the mission was done with.

Far better than they expected.

"Gojyo?" Hakkai says, after a moment.

"Yes?"

"I don't think I ever asked...you used to have that...skull thing. On the wall, back when we met..."

"Huh? ...oh, right. That. Was actually my mom's." Gojyo answers.

They've talked about her, long ago. About how water sprites are territorial creatures, and how she'd wanted her elder son to inherit the river. About how her elder son had kept Gojyo alive against her wishes. Hakkai ought to have known, really. But he can be remarkably stupid for someone so smart, as Sanzo said once.

Just thinking about the first words he ever said to Gojyo, in another life. Remarkably stupid indeed.

"I couldn't have." Gojyo says softly, now. "Tried once, but the kid was so scared... it was the eyes, really."

"Of course," Hakkai says, and kisses him. He is so kind, his Gojyo. Very different from himself in that way.

It's why they work so well together.


End file.
